Fall/Winter 2006 - University of Toronto Press Publishing

C U LT U R A L S T U D I E S
Theatre of Estrangement
Theory, Practice, Ideology
Silvija Jestrovic
GERMAN AND EUROPEAN STUDIES
In a world flooded with information, images, and
sounds – where the distinction between real and
simulated becomes increasingly blurred – one of the
most pressing concerns of the theatre is how to subvert
the stock responses of an audience and make the
well-known fresh and meaningful again. Situating
the practice of theatrical estrangement firmly in its
social and political contexts, Theatre of Estrangement
looks at how this concern has manifested itself in
Russian and German avant-garde theatre.
Silvija Jestrovic traces the concept of estrangement
from its early formulation in the Russian Formalist
School of Literary Criticism embodied in the experiments
of the Russian avant-garde, to its so-called
apotheosis in the theory and practice of Bertolt
Brecht. Drawing from a variety of sources – theatrical
performances, dramatic works, visual art, film,
political events, biographical data – she demonstrates
that theatrical estrangement is not only an abstract
theoretical postulate, but also a practical artistic
strategy shaped by the cultural and historical climate.
In the historical avant-garde, Jestrovic argues,
estrangement became a way of thinking, a means of
comprehending the world, and even a lifestyle. Yet,
devices of making the familiar strange are destined
to erode in one historical and cultural context and
become rediscovered in another to rejuvenate stale
art forms and open the door to a fresh and more
critical perception of reality. Theatre of Estrangement
attempts to make that rediscovery.
Silvija Jestrovic is a playwright and lecturer in the
Department of Theatre Studies at the University
of Warwick.
Madness and the Mad in
Russian Culture
Edited by Angela Brintlinger and Ilya Vinitsky
The problem of madness has preoccupied Russian
thinkers since the beginning of Russia’s troubled history
and has been dealt with repeatedly in literature,
art, film, and opera, as well as medical, political, and
philosophical essays. Madness has been treated not
only as a medical or psychological matter, but also
as a metaphysical one, encompassing problems of
suffering, imagination, history, sex, social and world
order, evil, retribution, death, and the afterlife.
Madness and the Mad in Russian Culture represents
a joint effort by American, British, and
Russian scholars – historians, literary scholars,
sociologists, cultural theorists, and philosophers
– to understand the rich history of madness in the
political, literary, and cultural spheres of Russia.
Editors Angela Brintlinger and Ilya Vinitsky have
brought together essays that cover over 250 years
and address a wide variety of ideas related to madness
– from the involvement of state and social
structures in questions of mental health, to the
attitudes of major Russian authors and cultural figures
towards insanity and how those attitudes both
shape and are shaped by the history, culture, and
politics of Russia.
Angela Brintlinger is an associate professor in the
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at
Ohio State University
Ilya Vinitsky is an assistant professor in the
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at
the University of Pennsylvania.
Approx. 208 pp / 6 x 9 / December 2006
Cloth ISBN 0-8020-9068-0 / 978-08020-9068-3
£35.00 $55.00
Approx. 304 pp / 6 x 9 / January 2007
4 illustrations
Cloth ISBN 0-8020-9140-7 / 978-08020-9140-6
£45.00 $70.00
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